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Has Ken Hitchcock succeeded in sticking to his timeline for turning around Edmonton Oilers?

David Staples, Edmonton Journal

Published: December 1, 2018 - 3:12 PM

Game Day 26 Oilers vs Vegas

High praise for Hitchock from Tyler Seguin, star attacker on his former team

Twelve days ago when Ken Hitchcock was hired by the Edmonton Oilers, he was blunt in what was wrong with the team and how long it would take him to fix things.

““I know what is wrong, but it’s not going to get fixed overnight… If we expect to win hockey games we’re not going to do it on talent, we have to develop an atmosphere where we’re 100% locked in playing for each other and not with each other. There’s a big difference in those two words… I went through this in St. Louis, we turned it around in eight or nine days, and we started to really play for each other. I think I can help this group turn that around.”

So far in Edmonton, the Oilers three wins and two losses with Hitchcock has hockey boss, which is slightly better than the nine wins and 11 losses they had when Todd McLellan was running the team.

So how Hitchcock successfully stuck to that two-ish week timeline for turning around a team? In the NHL, the won-loss record is the be-all, end-all, so three wins in five games speaks loudly for itself.

More to the point, the Oilers have gone from a group that at times looked fragile and even overwhelmed in McLellan’s final two games as coach against Calgary and Las Vegas. Of course, a bump up in effort is expected when a new team takes over. But it’s so far, so good with Hitchcock, with the team having a chance to hit real .500 tonight if they can beat Las Vegas. Edmonton has 12 wins and 13 (regulation and overtime) losses this year.

Hitchcock’s early success isn’t unexpected, as many pundits and fans expected the Oilers to make the playoffs this year and Hitchcock is also one of the most successful coaches in NHL history. That should make for a six wins out of every ten games combination, which would propel Edmonton into the playoffs this year.

The keys to Hitch’s success? They are numerous, of course, but before Edmonton’s game with Dallas earlier this week, star Dallas forward Tyler Seguin opened up about all he had learned from Hitchcock.

Here’s part of what Seguin had to say to the Dallas News about Hitchcock: “He was really the first coach to give me a lot of opportunity penalty killing, more faceoffs. When things aren’t going well, he didn’t just throw me on the wing like had happened to me in the past. He stuck with me and was always pushing me, really teaching that 200-foot side of the game… Last year, a lot of things he taught me, I feel like I’ve stuck with, faceoffs, competing, winning more battles. He was just a guy that was really pushing me with who was coming in that night.

“If [Jonathan] Toews was coming in, he would say ‘Hey, you’ve got to beat Toews tonight.’ If Sid [Crosby] was coming in, ‘You’ve got to beat Sid tonight.’ There were different guys he’d always just want to call me out every day and push me… He made my game grittier. I think I hit more last year and I think I’m trying to take that into playing this year. It doesn’t always have to be like huge crushing hits, but just being physical on the puck and whatnot.”

As for today’s game against Vegas, it looks like Ty Rattie is drawing into the game with Patrick Russell now in the AHL. This would make for a fourth line of Rattie, Ryan Spooner and Jujhar Khaira. Call it the “Something to Prove” line.